


to every time, there is a season

by AceQueenKing



Category: Hadestown - Mitchell
Genre: Anxiety, F/M, Reunions, Starting Over
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:01:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28335822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: This year, they had vowed it would be different. He wants, desperately, for it to be different.
Relationships: Hades/Persephone (Hadestown)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 55
Collections: Yuletide Madness 2020





	to every time, there is a season

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Largishcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Largishcat/gifts).



Here’s the thing about a train: goes fast. Particularly when it is carrying an important man, and Mr. Hades considers himself nothing so much as an important man.

For Mr. Hades, a man who has so rarely gone fast in his life, and all instances in which he has done so being those at his wife’s discretion, the feel of wind in his hair is both pleasurable and painful. Pleasurable in that the woman he is waiting for lies at the end of a destination he is rapidly heading toward meeting; painful in the anticipation that grinds in his guilt

Mr. Hades glances down at his schedule book, a thing he keeps in the pockets mostly for the counting of the days. So many days before her going, so many days her arrival.

There’s been days in this book where he’s cleared the schedule, so to speak; moved the pick-up date for the lady a week, two weeks…admittedly, months, at a time.

But this year is different. This year he is respecting of her wishes.

This year, the wind that blows into the windows is not the summer-itch of the too-hot sun on his heavy wool jacket; it’s a bit chilly, a bite to the wind that signposts the most sacred of events.

And so mister Hades sits, his head in his hands, and waits as the train whirls him towards his destination. At first, he’d thought the machine a miracle, a brilliant mechanical miracle; with it, he could squeeze in more time with his wife.

But she had hated it, and now it served mostly as a reminder of all that had passed between them: fights, endless, and wine, bitter-dark, and rage, darker still.

This year, they had vowed it would be different. He wants, desperately, for it to be different.

With the problem being, old, important Mr. Hades, for all his verifiable wisdom and ways, had no idea how to do such.

So he sits, head in his hands, and Mr. Hades waits, and Mr. Hades hopes, desperately, that his wife might know better how to make it right between them.

 _Try again_ , they’d said.

He remembered now how _try_ didn’t mean _succeed_.

* * *

The train pulls into the station. Normally, such would be a time when a man would get up, and a man would get out, and a man would grab his wife’s hand. But today, well, a man can’t seem to find the ability to get up, and a man’s legs might be a bit frozen, and a man might sit, far too long, in his seat, struggling with his heart strumming so loudly, and wanting to get up and not quite being able to because his body feels weak and his old lungs don't quite catch right and his heart feels like it just might explode right out of that most important man's lungs. 

It’s Hermes who climbs up into the car; can tell its Hermes without being able to look up, because he can hear the wings on those feet and he knows from that alone it’s the messenger who is coming to call.

“You alright?” He asks; he doesn’t have much pity in that voice. Suppose he’s right not to have much pity; Mr. Hades knows well enough it's not fair he’s got another chance in this story.

“No,” he says.

“Noted.” Mr. Hermes crosses his legs—a little puff of wind blasts Hades, and he might have appreciated it were he not shaking. “You want me to bring her in?”

“I don’t…” He feels heat blast across his face; how embarrassing. Good thing the wife wasn’t here, for she would most surely laugh at him.

“Right. I’m getting her.” Hermes crosses a few steps toward him, and, most unusually, places one hand upon his shoulder. He cannot quite force himself to look at him. “Look. Maybe it’ll work out better this time. Just gotta do it right...this time.”

Ah, as if that is all he has to do. Simply to do things right. _Wonderful_ advice.

He’d wanted to say such to the man, preferably in the most caustic terms possible, but Hermes is already gone, and Hades’ queasiness is not, and he hates it, and then he hears a familiar second set of boots hit the floor, feet whose tempo he’d know anywhere.

He finally forces himself to look.

There is his wife: she is standing, her expression both regal and neutral. Her bags are in her hands. He should get up to grab them but his legs and his courage are still stumbling. He tries and finally—finally!—makes it up, if in ungainly and stumbling steps towards her.

“Hi,” she says, soft.

“Hi,” he says. He takes her bags, tucks them up in the storage compartment. Persephone takes a seat on the same seat he himself has been occupying. He stares at her for one long moment, debating what to say.

Persephone pets the seat.

“Sit down, Hades,” she says, and her voice quivers a bit, and he wonders—perhaps even hopes—that maybe she’s nervous too. He sits. The train starts to move. His wife is jostled into his shoulder. Their hands briefly fumble together, and he grabs her hand.

She doesn’t let go.

“I waited,” he says.

“Yes,” she says. And instead of biting him about such— _so what, you want a medal for that?_ —she wrinkles her nose and smiles. But it’s one of those little smiles that’s hiding a not-smile behind it, the sort that she gets when her mother talks about a plant his wife does not particularly much like. “Suppose I should say thank you for that.”

“Don’t deserve a thank you for doing the bare minimum,” he says. And to that, she smiles more genuinely.

She puts her head on his shoulder and it feels good. He’d missed that, the feel of her hand in his, her head on his shoulder. She squeezes his hand.

For a long while, they ride in companionable silence. And Hades considers, well, maybe they can do this after all.

Persephone turns her head toward him as they shudder between the two worlds, her kingdom joining his. “I missed you,” she admits. “Somehow.”

“Missed you, too.” She kisses his cheek, and how his heart speeds up at that.

And maybe that’s a start.

In the darkness, Persephone smiles, and he cups her cheek. Her eyes shine like rubies, and Hades is reminded of nothing so much as pomegranates glittering between his fingers, so long ago.

It’s a good start, he thinks. Maybe they will do it right this time after all.


End file.
